msr

Seny Kamara

Researcher, Microsoft Research


email: senyk@microsoft.com
twitter: @senykam
blog: outsourcedbits.org


Overview

I am a researcher in the Crypto Group at Microsoft Research in Redmond. I completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University under the supervision of Fabian Monrose. At Hopkins I was a member of the Security and Privacy Applied Research (SPAR) Lab. I spent the Fall of 2006 at UCLA's IPAM and the summer of 2003 at CMU's CyLab.

My research is primarily in cloud security and cryptography but I maintain interests in various aspects of theory and systems, including applied and theoretical cryptography, information security, technology policy, networking, algorithms and economics.

Projects current

Fast encrypted search

Our goal is to design methods to efficiently search on encrypted data. In [1], we constructed the first searchable encryption schemes with sub-linear (and in fact optimal) search time. In [2], we showed how construct an optimal-time searchable encryption scheme that supports updates. In [3], we introduce a new approach for sub-linear time search that is highly parallel and dynamic. In [4] and [5] we show how to search/query encrypted matrices, graphs, and web graphs. In [6], we show how to search over encrypted data using MapReduce/Hadoop.

Some of our work on encrypted search has been covered by MIT Tech Review [7, 8] and Communications of the ACM [9].


Cloud storage systems

Our objective is to build secure cloud storage systems without sacrificing efficiency and utility. In particular, our systems provide integrity and verifiability while supporting various forms of search on encrypted data. The details of our architecture can be found in [10]. Our work on the underlying cryptographic primitives is described in various works, including [1, 2, 3] on searchable encryption, [11] on proofs of storage and [4, 5] on structured encryption.

Server-aided multi-party computation

We are exploring the extent to which cloud computing can improve the practicality and scalability of secure multi-party computation by considering a setting where parties can outsource their work to an untrusted cloud provider. Our initial work on this model can be found in [12]. More efficient protocols and experimental results appear in [13].


Research publications & talks

Recent Publications (full list)




Recent Talks & Lectures (full list)




Professional Activities events & interns

Program (co-)chair:

  • ACM Cloud Computing Security Workshop (CCSW '12)
Events (co-)organized: Invited participant:

I have worked with the following outstanding group of students:

If you are interested in an internship in the Crypto Group, please send me or any other group member an email.

Program committees:
 
  • Selected Areas in Cryptography (SAC '11)
  • Applied Cryptography & Network Security (ACNS '09, '11)
  • Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems (SSS '10)
  • Practice and Theory in Public-key Cryptography (PKC '09)


 
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